Back to Finland in November, after a week I am already missing the light and warmth of Italy.
During our last week we spent time in Palermo. There was hustle and a little too much everything after two and half weeks of travelling. It was lively, loud, pompous and shabby at the same time. Huge palazzos, theaters, fountains. Traffic with no rules, at least that is how it showed to us. Motorbikes pushed through narrow viccolos. Crossing the streets needed courage, but if you just go you can somehow zigzag over. Safest it was if you follow baby carriage or an elder with a cane.
We visited huge Teatro Massimo, opera house, with five storeys of boxes, King’s box, ceiling paintings and lamps of Murano glass. We found our way to Cappuccini catacombs and waited it to open after midday break at 3 o’clock. It is a cemetry of 8000 mummies in long corridors, most of them in standing positions. No photos were taken there. Visit to Norman palace with golden mosaics required lining up with hundreds of others. Near our living area murals of 27 victims killed by Mafia in Palermo were painted on a stone wall. Among them were authors, journalists, and several police officers. Locals told us that nowadays Mafia is no more killing people, but more focusing on economy. However, people on the streets were friendly and easy to contact.
From Palermo we took a night train to Rome. The quality was about the same as Snälltåget between Stockholm and Berlin, except only four beds in one cabin. We slept well on the narrow benches anyway. After those, the Finnish sleeping cabins feel luxury.
Rome felt really well organized after Palermo. It was clean, people followed traffic lights and streets had names written on the corners. We lived in a residential area in the northern part of Rome and it was pleasant to have morning coffees and dinners with local people away from the flow of tourists. But when in Rome you had to check some of the tourist attractions like Fontana di Trevi and Spanish stairs with thousands of others.
